So that barely qualified moderator at the VP debate opened up the can of worms that is the pointless abortion debate once again (probably on orders from Dem. higher ups to try and once again churn up this dumb “War on Women”…ignoring that it is this administration which is pumping money to the very anti-women Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, negotiating with the very same Taliban who shoots girls if they dare to try and learn, and views all women as nothing but Julia who must be taken care of because they couldn’t possibly do anything for themselves*

But this brought up two points.

The first being that you’re an idiot if you think Republicans are going to outlaw abortion?

Why are you an idiot? Because they can’t do that.

1. Conservatives tend to appoint conservative justices. Conservative justices hate doing two things: making precedent and changing precedent. They really hate doing that unless they really have to. So that means a good portion of the judges that could and will appointed are probably not going to be like liberal justices and eager to change everything (remember it was Reagan who appointed Sandra Day O’Connor).

2. Even if the Supreme Court overturned Roe it would only return it to being a state’s right’s issue, the court has no power to make something a crime, and even if it upheld a state law that banned abortion, it would only apply to that state, other states might follow suit, but if a state didn’t want abortion to be illegal, it wouldn’t be.

3. Even if Roe wasn’t in the way, Congress has no authority to criminalize abortion…conservatives are not liberals who make wacky laws that have no Constitutional basis, and no clause or amendment in the Constitution would give Congress the right to make laws on this issue.

4. Even if Congress went psycho crazy and tried to create such a law under a hideous interpretation of the commerce clause (yeah because I see that getting out of a Senate with Rand Paul in it)…this would give conservative justices a chance to overturn a court decisions they hate even more than Roe, Wickard v. Filburn, which would return the federal government to its rightful limited stance where it can only regulate commerce that actually crosses state lines.

5. Don’t talk to me about an amendment banning abortion. Ignoring there are too many libertarian leanings within the Republican party to ever get a 2/3rds vote in both the House and the Senate….it requires 3/4th of the states to sign off on that for it to be ratified–That’s never going to happen. Also, since most of these arguments get brought up around who is going to be president…you do realize that beside the power of the bully pulpit the President has no power or authority when it comes to constitutional amendments, right?

So even in what is the worse case scenario for liberals, abortion is probably still legal in almost every state above the Mason-Dixon. Don’t like it move. But abortion will never be outlawed in the US, stop the bitching and fear mongering, it’s totally unjustified.

My religion defines who I am, and I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And has particularly informed my social doctrine. The Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who — who can’t take care of themselves, people who need help. With regard to — with regard to abortion, I accept my church’s position on abortion as a — what we call a (inaudible) doctrine. Life begins at conception in the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life.

But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the — the congressman. I — I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that — women they can’t control their body. It’s a decision between them and their doctor.

This is basically the same thing John Kerry said 8 years ago. As I pointed out in the first chapter of Republicans and Reincarnationit was bullshit then, and it’s bullshit now.

I’m prochoice…but I don’t believe life begins at conception.

You can’t say you believe that life begins at conception, believe you shouldn’t regulate that and believe you are a good person. If life begins at conception then abortion is murder. If you choose not to legislate, within Constitutional limits, on murder, you are a terrible excuse for a human being–just abhorrent beyond words. And if you are such a sociopath that you don’t think murder should be legislated on, then you have no place as dog-catcher let alone any other elected office. Of course, I don’t think Joe is a sociopath (you wouldn’t know it from his laughing at idea like genocide and nuclear war), I don’t think he’s a good Catholic. He performs the routines for political purposes, but he doesn’t understand or believe in any of the ethical tenets. Like his boss, he’s probably really an atheist in his heart of hearts. Which just makes him a filthy liar.

Believing life begins at conception creates an ethical imperative to protect that life, and to do anything else becomes a contradiction. I don’t believe the soul takes residence in the body until almost the end of the pregnancy, so I don’t suffer from this contradiction, and I will defend the right to have an abortion because of it…but it is just sickening to see that those whom I would agree with in terms of ends justify their premises on the most BS foundation I can think of. Either admit you don’t really believe in your religion, Joe, or don’t support abortion, you can’t have it both ways.

*If you need reminding about Julia see the six part series: I, II, III, IV, V, VI